I’m talking famous projects like Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune, and Tim Burton’s Superman Lives. Discussion around these and similar efforts tends to focus on whether or not they would have been any good from a subjective standpoint, but I’m curious whether they would have proved financially successful or not.
by RedHeadedSicilian52
1 Comment
Jodorowski’s Dune would have made a decent amount at the box office, but it still would have lost money, since the budget would have been absurd at the time and most of the audience would have hated it. The studio would also have hated it, but they would have felt like they had to promote the hell out of it to make up for the insane amount of money they’d already spent. It would be considered one of the biggest failures in film history (in spite of the numbers not being bad enough to warrant the label), but it would also have a dedicated cult fanbase.
Burton’s Superman Lives would have done well enough to justify a sequel, but then the sequel would have been an enormous bomb that nearly sank the studio and would have started the decline of Nic Cage’s career a few years early.
Kubrick’s Napoleon probably would have done fine.